


But you'll never tell me, 'cause that's not our deal

by EponineTheStrange (gallifreyandglowclouds)



Category: Doctor Who RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-13
Updated: 2013-07-13
Packaged: 2017-12-19 07:52:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/881318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gallifreyandglowclouds/pseuds/EponineTheStrange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Songfic based on 'Our Deal' by Best Coast</p>
            </blockquote>





	But you'll never tell me, 'cause that's not our deal

Matt slept in her bed again last night. No, Karen doesn’t really remember how they got there (blame the glorious New York nightclubs for that), but she knows that she’s still wearing her dress from last night, and is also confident enough that Matt wouldn’t pull something while she was drunk to the point of blacking out.

There’s the smallest of indentations beside her in bed, and she can sort of still smell the cologne that she remembers hating initially but now loving because it makes her think of arms around her waist and kisses on her forehead and _him,_ so he must not have left long ago. She sighs.

She has never once woken up with him in the various beds that they have shared, whether platonically (mostly) or romantically (that one night in Spain where her only regret is remember too little of what had happened).

More of last night comes flooding back as she sits up in bed and immediately wishes she hadn’t because her head threatens to split in half, and she’s so happy that they aren’t filming today, because she’d be a fucking wreck and a half. She now distinctly remembers Matt holding her hair back while she puked her guts out when they got back to her hotel room, him wiping her face off with a damp cloth, and oh, oh this is the best one, snuggling up beside her drunken self in bed and whispering, ‘Good night, Gillan,’ before kissing her cheek and falling asleep with his breath hot on her neck.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

She wishes desperately that she could stop dancing around this thing with Matt that they clearly and obviously have, because she knows what those knowing looks from Alex and those eyerolls from Arthur mean, and she can’t help but feeling heat whenever they’re together, and it burns ever brighter now that she’s not with Patrick and she isn’t worried about blowing up her relationship because Matt makes her feel ways that Patrick never, ever did.

The thing is – and this is why love, and especially this love, is the cruellest bitch around – Matt’s just as willing to dance as she is, and perhaps if he called her on shit (or she called him on his), they’d be able to stop this manic spin before something terrible happens. (It’s like they’re binary planets, locked on to one another, and nothing short of a cataclysm will knock the two of them out of orbit.)

Karen had thought that what happened between the two of them in Spain might have just been the thing to change their alignment, but Matt never talked about it. She never felt that she could, and so it just went on the list of stupid things that she’s done with Matt that she doesn’t regret, per se, but will never actually mean anything because they’re both too scared to let them have meaning.

Kind of like his caring for her last night, and when she spent a night watching Pixar movies with him when he broke up with Daisy for good, and all the times they have leaned on each other since 2009 that she doesn’t remember but knows happened, and it’s all history that to two other people who weren’t used to doing their intricate dance would actually mean something (but for them, it will always add up to nothing).

Her phone buzzes, and it’s Matt.

_You alive? We should go get something greasy for breakfast._

_Yeah, sounds good,_ she replies. _You know, you didn’t have to leave. I know you were here last night, and it would have been fine for you to stay._

He doesn’t address the question. _Meet you in the lobby in 5?_

_Yeah, sounds good._

(And their dance shall continue, when he kisses her cheek on the last day of TATM filming, and when he rests his hand on the back of her neck zips up her dress for the first time in New York, and then will pause briefly when he catches the zipper on the silk with his hand still on her neck, and he pulls the zipper back down to the bottom and zips it up again, properly this time, and she wonders if he misses touching her as much as she misses his touch. They’ll put on their semi-romantic show for the crowds, but he’ll drop her off for her JFK-LAX flight the next day with nothing but a sad smile and a wave, and the dance will go on.

Karen needs to stop hoping for miracles, because she will not get one here. It’s not how they operate.)


End file.
